i only do it once or twice.. and its not even a daily thing... just when he starts nipping my daughters or like i said above... but my parents did it about 6 times a day for their gordon setter and he turned out to be a perfect dog... untill he got cushings disease )c: now he's completely blind and well getting older, but he's still a playful dog
What do y'all think about pinning/alpha roll
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I'm really sick of people saying that other dog professionals who criticize Cesar in any way must be acting out of jealousy. 
Really? That's the only reason why they might speak out against some of his methods? Not because he's ever wrong? Or because some of the things he does on his show might be dangerous for the average (clueless) dog owner? Whatever.
Really? That's the only reason why they might speak out against some of his methods? Not because he's ever wrong? Or because some of the things he does on his show might be dangerous for the average (clueless) dog owner? Whatever.
im not bashing cesar, but i want to know what goes on in the out-takes, everything i see in the show (which is very little) seems correct, but what about shows that didn't make it to television because they didn't like the end result... but thats one thing i hate about "reality" shows, not just this oneI'm really sick of people saying that other dog professionals who criticize Cesar in any way must be acting out of jealousy.
Actually, I wouldn't recommend that someone who wasn't a professional or who didn't have a good deal of experience handling dogs pin a large, unsocialized, fearful dog. <i>However</i>, pinning a dog down gently but firmly can actually work rather well in these cases<i>if you can prevent the dog from responding with stereotyped behaviors or driving you off</i>. You aren't causing pain if the restraint is properly applied, but you're preventing the dog from responding in the way that it usually would to a stimulus, which helps extinguish the response. And that's just for general freaking out. If the dog is attempting to drive you away from some resource, as one poster here mentioned about her adolescent pup, I personally think that a flip-and-pin, or grab-and-hug, or some other method that brings the dog under your immediate physical control and close contact is one of the best responses possible. (Of course, I'm talking about a adolescent pup's first tentative efforts, not a dog with ingrained resource-aggressiveness. That's something different. And of course I'm not talking about play-growling during play.) It provokes a strong aversive startle from the dog without causing pain, and it teaches the dog that growling or snapping at you in such a way not only -doesn't- drive you off (which is the result that the dog was trying for,) but it results in exactly the opposite of what the dog wants. It is also, as you know, a very dominant move, which is precisely what's needed to head this kind of thing off on its first occurrence.
(This is actually the method that I used to tame several territorial biter rats, who actually share a lot of behavioral responses with dogs, but are even harder to punish meaningfully, or use positive reinforcement on to eliminate this type of behavior. I tried. I could produce no treat that overrode the bite-from-hiding response. They kept biting me whenever I would reach into or near a den-type area or if they were undercover somewhere. So, whenever they bit me, I'd immediately grab them, flip 'em, and pin 'em, which is a natural behavior during play and dominance battles among rats -- or if I was already holding them, I'd just keep holding them and turn them on their backs and give a quick shake. The only time I showed such behavior to them was when they either were biting or had just bitten me. All other interactions were full of positive reinforcement. About three days later they were only mouthing me, which was acceptable, and the next time I got bit by one of those rats was about a year and some later when one of them was in respiratory distress and not exactly conscious. Other than the biting, which only ever occurred in limited areas, they never showed any fear of me; in fact, they'd do just about anything to interact with me, most of the time. The point is: delivering appropriate punishment to an animal in a way that it understands and can control isn't going to cause mental damage to the animal, and can be extremely effective and humane.)
Sometimes punishment really -is- the best response: if you're trying to teach the dog not to do something that is highly rewarding to do, you have to either come up with a reward that's -better- for +R training ... or an aversive stimulus that's stronger. And since punishment can often end a behavior after one or a few applications, so long as the dog hasn't had time to practice and reinforce the behavior, it's often easier on you and the dog in the long run; a mild punishment could stop at the start, with one application, what it would take weeks or months of another method to try and correct -- and all that time you haven't ended the behavior, the dog is usually succeeding at reinforcing it.
Also, I would disagree with your assessment that pinning or otherwise applying similar punishments causes your dog to think that you're 'mean'. Done properly, the dog doesn't experience anything other than mild physical discomfort, which -should- end immediately when the dog submits -- and you should mark this point, the end of punishment, with a marker of some sort, you let it up, and then reward it for complying. Studies have shown that dogs don't resent punishments that are applied in the correct proportion and on a contingent basis; in fact, they seem to benefit from it, coming to understand limits and obtaining better impulse control. Of course, I don't think that this means that you should hit/beat/constantly scruff/roll/whatever your dog; I consider pinning a dog (but not a puppy) to be a much stronger response than is usually needed for most of the offenses you encounter with a dog who's at least moderately well-adjusted. (Puppies are used to being corrected this way.) I find time outs to be appropriate for most dogs for most offenses, but I think that a time out, for a puppy, is actually pretty close to the top of the aversiveness scale, much higher than scruffing or pinning them is. (They have a high tolerance for physical correction, proportionate to their size, but social isolation is an extremely stressful experience for most puppies.)
...Holy dang this got long.
But the point is, different problems need different solutions, and punishment isn't, by itself, a bad thing, and mild aversive punishments can actually help improve your dog's ability to react to adversity and enhance the leader-follower bond. However, for many people, punishment can be extremely difficult to deliver properly, both because they misunderstand how to apply it, cannot judge the right intensity, cannot judge the right type of punishment for the offense, and tend to get emotionally invested in it. They apply it on a noncontingent basis so the dog doesn't know why it's getting punished and they give the dog no way to feel that it's in control of being punished or not. And most people suck at really -reading- their dogs and understanding their motivations, which is necessary for formulating proper punishments and punishment intensities. All of these things can lead to really screwed up dogs.
Well, to compare, we'd first need to establish whether, on average, dogs trained using only positive methods were better-behaved than dogs trained using both positive methods and corrections. You'd also have to take into account which took longer, and which dogs were better-adjusted to general situations. Also, some dogs are simply better at interpreting what we want, or more sensitive to the withdrawal of reinforcers.
Also, we have to establish that people use pure +R methods because they work better, and not because they have an ideological opposition to anything they consider to be punishment, which is what I think the real difference comes from in quite a lot of cases. Those who acknowledge that correction has a place in training will use multiple methods because they know that some things are better suited to correcting certain dogs and certain behaviors by them than others. Whereas anti-punishment ideologues, by their nature, have only +R to work with.
It should be noted that, in terms of the amount of extinction of a behavior that it can produce, a 60-second time out, for a normal, social dog, is roughly equivalent to a brief shock. (1-2mA @ 30ms.) It can be inferred that it causes roughly the same amount of distress to the dog. Is a time out then as 'bad' as shocking your dog?
Similarly, are bitches abusing their pups when they mouth or pin 'em or even nip back for nipping on 'em too hard? I wouldn't think so, because the pup understands the correction at an instinctual or near-instinctual level, and the corrections are always applied in a consistent, fair manner contingent on the actions of the pup.
Is booby-trapping objects you don't want your pups to investigate with a can with some pennies in it abusive? (The goal is to have it fall and startle the pup, not fall -on- the pup.
) I wouldn't say so, but a single encounter like that can keep the animal off and wary of something like a firepit grill or a laundry chute for life, and most physical corrections that you could administer without causing actual damage probably don't provide such a long-lasting aversive impression. (At least not of the object you're trying to provide the motivation to not bother. Of you, on the other hand...dogs understand 'correction' but they don't understand abuse.)Anyway. For a long time, dog training methods were mired in abuse -- similar to horse training methods. You broke a hunting dog or a horse, you didn't train it. Even now, so many people utterly suck at applying punishment to a dog, tending towards abuse instead, so people who actually care about animals have swung in the opposite direction, to the opposite extreme. I'm apalled now at the way that we treated the first dog my family had, and even now most people wouldn't see any problem with the way that we raised it. So there's even a good motivation to tell inexperienced owners to swing to the other extreme: because it's a lot harder to really screw up a dog with poor +R technique than it is with poor correction technique. But I've put a lot of study into behavioral science and dogs since then, and I now use very +R methods. However, I'm also aware of the power of properly applied punishments, and believe that they are, in general, good for the dog if properly, consistently, and fairly applied.
Yeah. About the only time I feel something like a roll is appropriate on a dog for is correcting aggressive or dominating behavior towards you, and even then, it has to be the right kind of dog. Also, I'd posit that the reason that the one dog got pissed when you tried to correct the other when it came back to you was because it came back to you and thus complied with you. You were about to punish it for doing the right thing. If you'd tackled the dog while it was still running I think it might've been different.
But anyway. So long as we learn from our mistakes, it's a good thing, right?Amen. If you keep that in mind, you can't go too far wrong no matter what methods you use.
i agree.good post!actually, i wouldn't recommend that someone who wasn't a professional or who didn't have a good deal of experience handling dogs pin a large, unsocialized, fearful dog. <i>however</i>, pinning a dog down gently but firmly can actually work rather well in these cases<i>if you can prevent the dog from responding with stereotyped behaviors or driving you off</i>. You aren't causing pain if the restraint is properly applied, but you're preventing the dog from responding in the way that it usually would to a stimulus, which helps extinguish the response. And that's just for general freaking out. If the dog is attempting to drive you away from some resource, as one poster here mentioned about her adolescent pup, i personally think that a flip-and-pin, or grab-and-hug, or some other method that brings the dog under your immediate physical control and close contact is one of the best responses possible. (of course, i'm talking about a adolescent pup's first tentative efforts, not a dog with ingrained resource-aggressiveness. That's something different. And of course i'm not talking about play-growling during play.) it provokes a strong aversive startle from the dog without causing pain, and it teaches the dog that growling or snapping at you in such a way not only -doesn't- drive you off (which is the result that the dog was trying for,) but it results in exactly the opposite of what the dog wants. It is also, as you know, a very dominant move, which is precisely what's needed to head this kind of thing off on its first occurrence.
(this is actually the method that i used to tame several territorial biter rats, who actually share a lot of behavioral responses with dogs, but are even harder to punish meaningfully, or use positive reinforcement on to eliminate this type of behavior. I tried. I could produce no treat that overrode the bite-from-hiding response. They kept biting me whenever i would reach into or near a den-type area or if they were undercover somewhere. So, whenever they bit me, i'd immediately grab them, flip 'em, and pin 'em, which is a natural behavior during play and dominance battles among rats -- or if i was already holding them, i'd just keep holding them and turn them on their backs and give a quick shake. The only time i showed such behavior to them was when they either were biting or had just bitten me. All other interactions were full of positive reinforcement. About three days later they were only mouthing me, which was acceptable, and the next time i got bit by one of those rats was about a year and some later when one of them was in respiratory distress and not exactly conscious. Other than the biting, which only ever occurred in limited areas, they never showed any fear of me; in fact, they'd do just about anything to interact with me, most of the time. The point is: Delivering appropriate punishment to an animal in a way that it understands and can control isn't going to cause mental damage to the animal, and can be extremely effective and humane.)
sometimes punishment really -is- the best response: If you're trying to teach the dog not to do something that is highly rewarding to do, you have to either come up with a reward that's -better- for +r training ... Or an aversive stimulus that's stronger. And since punishment can often end a behavior after one or a few applications, so long as the dog hasn't had time to practice and reinforce the behavior, it's often easier on you and the dog in the long run; a mild punishment could stop at the start, with one application, what it would take weeks or months of another method to try and correct -- and all that time you haven't ended the behavior, the dog is usually succeeding at reinforcing it.
Also, i would disagree with your assessment that pinning or otherwise applying similar punishments causes your dog to think that you're 'mean'. Done properly, the dog doesn't experience anything other than mild physical discomfort, which -should- end immediately when the dog submits -- and you should mark this point, the end of punishment, with a marker of some sort, you let it up, and then reward it for complying. studies have shown that dogs don't resent punishments that are applied in the correct proportion and on a contingent basis; in fact, they seem to benefit from it, coming to understand limits and obtaining better impulse control. Of course, i don't think that this means that you should hit/beat/constantly scruff/roll/whatever your dog; i consider pinning a dog (but not a puppy) to be a much stronger response than is usually needed for most of the offenses you encounter with a dog who's at least moderately well-adjusted. (puppies are used to being corrected this way.) i find time outs to be appropriate for most dogs for most offenses, but i think that a time out, for a puppy, is actually pretty close to the top of the aversiveness scale, much higher than scruffing or pinning them is. (they have a high tolerance for physical correction, proportionate to their size, but social isolation is an extremely stressful experience for most puppies.)
...holy dang this got long.
Well, to compare, we'd first need to establish whether, on average, dogs trained using only positive methods were better-behaved than dogs trained using both positive methods and corrections. You'd also have to take into account which took longer, and which dogs were better-adjusted to general situations. Also, some dogs are simply better at interpreting what we want, or more sensitive to the withdrawal of reinforcers.
Also, we have to establish that people use pure +R methods because they work better, and not because they have an ideological opposition to anything they consider to be punishment, which is what I think the real difference comes from in quite a lot of cases. Those who acknowledge that correction has a place in training will use multiple methods because they know that some things are better suited to correcting certain dogs and certain behaviors by them than others. Whereas anti-punishment ideologues, by their nature, have only +R to work with.
It should be noted that, in terms of the amount of extinction of a behavior that it can produce, a 60-second time out, for a normal, social dog, is roughly equivalent to a brief shock. (1-2mA @ 30ms.) It can be inferred that it causes roughly the same amount of distress to the dog. Is a time out then as 'bad' as shocking your dog?
Similarly, are bitches abusing their pups when they mouth or pin 'em or even nip back for nipping on 'em too hard? I wouldn't think so, because the pup understands the correction at an instinctual or near-instinctual level, and the corrections are always applied in a consistent, fair manner contingent on the actions of the pup.
Is booby-trapping objects you don't want your pups to investigate with a can with some pennies in it abusive? (The goal is to have it fall and startle the pup, not fall -on- the pup.
Anyway. For a long time, dog training methods were mired in abuse -- similar to horse training methods. You broke a hunting dog or a horse, you didn't train it. Even now, so many people utterly suck at applying punishment to a dog, tending towards abuse instead, so people who actually care about animals have swung in the opposite direction, to the opposite extreme. I'm apalled now at the way that we treated the first dog my family had, and even now most people wouldn't see any problem with the way that we raised it. So there's even a good motivation to tell inexperienced owners to swing to the other extreme: because it's a lot harder to really screw up a dog with poor +R technique than it is with poor correction technique. But I've put a lot of study into behavioral science and dogs since then, and I now use very +R methods. However, I'm also aware of the power of properly applied punishments, and believe that they are, in general, good for the dog if properly, consistently, and fairly applied.
Where to start? First of all, who said that people who train with positive methods use NO corrections? I correct my dogs. Normally that is a simple tone of voice change, that is usually all that is required.
I have never boobie trapped ANYTHING. I do not find that fair. Unless you consider the solar powered electric fence wire near the base of my solid/wire fence. It is no longer there, but it was more of a safety thing, than a correction, and because they were aware of it, could see it and avoid it, I do not feel it was a boobie trap at all.
I have left bitches with pups long after ten weeks. I have NEVER seen one roll one of the pups over, and I have NEVER seen one nip a puppy. I have been able to let six month old pups run with their dam without any issues. After that, I really do not see a need for it. Usually dam and pups are separated when I am not there to observe just prior to four months. No alpha rolls, no snapping.
And this is something many of the newbies with sheps do not understand. They have this eight week old puppy and are asking when they can fit it with a prong collar, and when they should start working with an e-fence. What kind of corrections they should give the puppy. When a bitch with puppies will pretty much let a youngster climb all over her, chew on her, and eat out of her food dish until that pup is a good four to five months old. Even after that, they put up an awful lot from pups.
It is we humans that expect puppies to come out of puppy classes with a wonderful set of manners, and a great understanding and compliance with commands. We seem to think they are much older than they are. Yes, young puppies can learn to heel and to get it in and sit straight and to down on command and stay. But at what cost, if the methods used are compusive?
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